Ministers are looking to raise up to £3bn before the end of the year through the sale of the government's 33 per cent stake in Urenco, the uranium enrichment company, in one of the biggest privatisations in years.
The deal would be a relief to the Treasury, which hopes that a series of sales will put a dent in the country's towering debt. Royal Mail could also be sold this year, raising £3bn-£4bn.
FRANKFURT/AMSTERDAM, March 27 (Reuters) - Dutch nuclear reactor Borssele has been given permission to operate up to 2033, though the approval can still be contested, Dutch and German stakeholders said on Wednesday.
Started in 1973, the 500 megawatt plant is one of the oldest reactors in Europe. It is 70 percent owned by Dutch generator Delta, in turn owned by Dutch provincial authorities, and 30 percent by German utility RWE.
French electricity company Electricite de France SA and the British government are unlikely to meet a deadline at the end of March to agree on subsidies that would allow the construction of new nuclear power plants in the U.K., people familiar with the matter said.
The people said in recent days that although discussions are still ongoing, they aren't intensive and neither side appeared to be willing to make any compromises.
BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's plans to reward nuclear plant operators through fixed prices for low-carbon energy are illegal under existing EU rules and efforts to adapt them are likely to draw opposition from other member states, EU and legal sources said.
Britain plans to reform its electricity market to fix a minimum price for nuclear, wind and solar-generated power, which is carbon free.
Flanked by Germany, which is phasing out nuclear power, and Austria, which has already done so, the Czech Republic is pinning its future on atomic energy.
The ex-communist republic of 10.5 million people, which now relies on nuclear for about 30 percent of its energy mix, is pushing an upgrade of its disputed Temelin plant and betting on getting at least half of its energy from the atom by 2025.
HOLLAND has dropped its historic opposition to a sale of Urenco, clearing the way for a full privatisation of the state-backed nuclear fuel maker.
The sudden change of heart came after several rounds of intergovernmental talks over the future of Urenco, which is owned by the governments of Britain and Holland and two German utility companies.
Catastrophic nuclear accidents, like Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima No. 1 in 2011, are very rare, we’re incessantly told, and their probability of occurring infinitesimal. But when they do occur, they get costly. So costly that the French government, when it came up with cost estimates, kept them secret.
But now the report was leaked to the French magazine, Le Journal de Dimanche. Turns out, the upper end of the cost spectrum of an accident at a single reactor at the plant chosen for the study, the plant at Dampierre in the Department of Loiret in north-central France, would amount to over three times the country’s GDP. Financially, France would cease to exist as we know it.
THE boss of one of Britain’s biggest energy giants has blasted Government plans to encourage new nuclear plants.
Paul Massara, chief executive of RWE npower, said contracts lasting up to a rumoured 35 years, to guarantee generators a minimum price for electricity, would be “wrong”.
Ministers are being pressured to offer lengthy terms to get firms to commit to the vast cost of building nuclear power stations.
Proposed nuclear reactor in Somerset could be delayed by two years if competition directorate launches full-scale investigation
Britain's planned nuclear reactor programme could be delayed for years, and the nation's long-term energy policy thrown into turmoil, as European commission officials launch the first stage of a formal investigation into the use of taxpayer subsidies to support the development.
The FINANCIAL -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has decided to participate in a comprehensive safety upgrade programme for the operating nuclear power units of Ukraine with a €300 million loan.
The programme will bring the fleet of Ukraine ’s nuclear power plants in line with international safety standards, including those of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
